


I'm Going to Make this Place Your Home

by remy (iamremy)



Series: 12 days of wincestmas - 2020 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Communication, Domesticity in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/remy
Summary: Sam has trouble adjusting to the MoL Bunker.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: 12 days of wincestmas - 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601026
Comments: 6
Kudos: 106





	I'm Going to Make this Place Your Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sintari (OriginalSintari)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalSintari/gifts).



> sometimes you just get slapped in the face by s8 feels and then this sort of thing happens. it just be like that sometimes.

It’s the little things that make the bunker _home_ instead of just one more place to stay. Dean starts small, when they move in; he begins with his room, decorating it to his liking, the way he would lay awake at night and imagine in his younger years. At the time it had been an impossible fantasy, but now, with each poster he puts up and each item of clothing he places in the dresser, it is a welcome reality.

They’ve got a home now.

After his room is done, Dean moves on to the kitchen. He sorts through every pot and pan he finds, separating them into piles according to how usable they are. He figures out how to use the old-fashioned fridge, stove top, and oven. He dusts the whole place top to bottom, and when he’s done, he goes online and orders a toaster, a microwave, and a coffee machine. He even throws in some cookbooks.

He hunts down the keys to every car in the garage and puts them up on a board, neatly labeled with the cars’ names and, where relevant, model and color. He dusts off the old gramophone in the library, and tinkers with it till he can get it to work. He buys some records on vinyl to go with it, too.

It takes a couple weeks, but it’s surprising how at home Dean already feels in so little time. He assumes that it’s the same for Sam – his brother certainly never says anything that would lead him to believe otherwise – but comes to a rude awakening one sunny morning, almost a month after moving in.

Sam is out running, and Dean has been thinking about doing the laundry. He’s got a basket balanced on his hip as he walks into Sam’s room, intending to gather up his brother’s laundry – and then he stops short.

Sam’s room is almost entirely bare except for the bed, the dresser, and a desk. Shit, Dean’s seen better furnished jail cells. Even the sheets on the bed are plain white, faded almost beige with age. Sam probably found them in a storage closet somewhere, ran them through the washing machine, and put them on. Unlike Dean, who actually went shopping for sheets.

Sam’s duffel is by the foot of his bed, and Dean frowns when he realizes it’s packed. He puts the basket down and moves to the dresser, and pulls open a drawer only to find it empty. At least Sam’s toothbrush is present in its holder on the sink, but that doesn’t provide Dean with much comfort.

It looks far too much like Sam is planning on leaving.

He corners Sam when he returns from his run. Sam has barely taken three steps into the kitchen, sweaty and flushed, when Dean demands, “Why haven’t you unpacked?”

Sam freezes, deer in headlights. “What?”

“I went into your room to get your laundry,” Dean tells him, “and I just happened to noticed that you haven’t unpacked. Why?”

“I just… didn’t get around to it,” Sam answers vaguely, not meeting Dean’s eyes.

“Sam, we’ve been here a month,” Dean points out. “And we’ve been on, what, three hunts? We’ve had nothing but time!”

“Well, I just didn’t do it, okay?” Sam says, moving around Dean so he can get himself a glass of water. “Why does it bother you so much?”

“Because it looks like you’re going to leave,” Dean snaps, and then regrets it immediately when Sam goes completely still.

“What?” Sam asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“Sam–” Dean tries, but he doesn’t know what he’ll say.

In any case, it’s clearly too late. Sam lets his outstretched hand fall to his side, and asks, voice brittle, “You think I’ll leave you?”

“No, I just–”

“You just what, Dean?” Sam asks. His voice cracks on his brother’s name, and Dean notes with horror that his eyes are filling up. “You think I’d do that? Just leave you? You have that little faith in me?”

“Sammy, no, it’s not like that,” Dean tries again.

“No?” Sam asks. “Then what is it?” He swallows. “Because to me it looks like you just don’t trust me, Dean. And I–” He pauses, swallows again, and looks away before continuing. “I just don’t know what to tell you that’ll convince you. I don’t even know if I _can_.”

“Sammy,” Dean says, heart sinking, but Sam’s already shouldering past him, out of the kitchen and in the direction of his room. Dean watches him go, and exhales slowly as he realizes that he’s just fucked up. 

Sam chose him over Amelia. Sam took on the Trials instead of him. He _knows_ Sam won’t leave him, and he knows that they’re in a better place now than they have been in a while. Except – except now it looks like he’s gone and screwed it up, made Sam think that he doesn’t have faith in him.

He’s got to fix this, somehow.

* * *

He knocks on Sam’s door a few hours later, after he’s given Sam enough time to himself. “Come in,” Sam calls out on the third knock, sounding hoarse and tired, and Dean lets himself in.

Sam is sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, holding a book in his hand that’s still open to the first page. He looks like he’s been sitting there a while, going by the creases in the bedsheets.

“Hey,” Dean says quietly.

“Hey,” Sam answers after a pause. He doesn’t look at Dean.

“Can I sit?” Dean asks, gesturing towards the bed. He’s very careful not to look at the duffel at its foot.

Instead of answering, Sam moves aside without a word. Dean sits down, and takes a moment to go over his words carefully in his head before he speaks. “I’m sorry,” he begins. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or that I don’t have faith in you. It’s not like that, Sammy, I swear. I was just… I was scared, all right?”

“But _why_?” Sam asks, shutting his book with a snap and putting it aside.

“Because I’m a dumbass, all right?” Dean answers. “I know it’s not like that, but sometimes I get insecure, okay? And I hate it, and I know it’s not how things actually are, but seeing your shit all packed up just scared me, okay? God, Sam, I can’t help it, man. What am I going to do without you?”

“But I’m not going anywhere!” Sam tells him, finally turning to face him. “Dean, the reason I didn’t unpack is not because I want to leave you! It’s because – because this place doesn’t feel like home to me, okay? And I know you’ve settled in,” he adds before Dean can speak. “And I’m happy for you, I am. But it just doesn’t feel right to me. I’m scared I’ll get comfortable here and then it’ll get taken away from us, and I’m scared that it won’t last. It’s just easier for me like this, because this way it won’t hurt if we have to leave.”

The confession takes Dean enough by surprise that for a few moments he doesn’t speak. Sam continues watching him, mouth downturned, eyes dull in the lamplight. He looks tired, and worn down, and sallow, and it stings Dean that some of it might be due to him.

“I don’t know if we can stay here forever,” he says in the end. “But we can stay here for now, Sam. And that’s good enough for me. We’ve never had a home, man. And I don’t know if this is it. But I’m willing to try, and see how that goes. And, look.” He takes a deep breath, and then reaches out to take Sam’s hand, feeling gratified when Sam lets him. “You told me that you see a light at the end of the tunnel. You promised me you’d take me to it. Now I’m asking you to let me do that for you. I can make it home, Sam, but I don’t want to do it if you’re not in it with me. All right?”

Sam hesitates a little, looking torn. Dean gives him time, waits patiently as Sam thinks his words through, and tries not to feel anxious, tries not to think about what he’ll do if Sam doesn’t agree.

And then Sam squeezes his hand, and says, “Okay, Dean. I trust you.”

Dean smiles at him, slow and soft. “You in?”

Sam’s answering smile is a little uncertain, but there are dimples, and that makes it more than enough for Dean. “Yeah, Dean, I’m in.”

“Good,” says Dean forcefully, and leans in to peck Sam lightly on the lips. “Am I forgiven?”

“Yeah,” Sam says with a little grin. “You are.”

“Enough that you’ll let me sleep here with you tonight?” Dean asks, only half-teasing.

“If you want to,” Sam answers.

“I want to,” Dean tells him, and kisses Sam again when he smiles.

* * *

He makes more of an effort to include Sam in his decor adventures from that point on. He helps Sam add his favorite books to the library, and between the two of them, they manage to install enough signal boosters in the bunker so that the whole place has Wi-Fi coverage. He teaches Sam how to use the stove, and takes him shopping for bedsheets and small decorative items and other things to brighten his room up with. Predictably, Sam just buys a sun lamp and several potted succulents, the nerd, but it counts, and Dean’s just happy Sam’s taking initiative instead of letting Dean do everything for him.

Dean also helps Sam unpack his duffel. He sorts Sam’s weapons out while Sam organizes his clothes in the dresser, and then he makes a list of more things he can get Sam, like a nice towel rack and maybe a phone charging stand.

It takes more time for Sam to settle in than it did Dean, but eventually, he stops moving about the bunker like he’s a guest. He starts helping out more around the place, going through the old archives and making some sort of organizational system for all the books in the library, and helping Dean around the kitchen sometimes, cutting up vegetables while Dean cooks, making grocery lists and (to Dean’s delight) adding his favorite tea and leafy rabbit food to it. On clear days they go for walks outside, just exploring the area, and Dean takes Sam’s hand in his and intertwines their fingers casually at every single opportunity he gets. He always pretends not to see the way Sam smiles when he does that, but it lights him up from the inside.

Slowly, but surely, the bunker becomes home. Not because Dean now has most of his things unpacked and settled, or because he has a place to cook and a room to call his own – but because Sam is right here with him, finally learning to live in a space rather than just exist in it.

In spite of that, though, it’s never really been about the bunker itself. Dean’s home has always been Sam. And now he knows that Sam’s home has always been him, too.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is greatly appreciated!
> 
> love,  
> remy


End file.
